Petroleum prices advanced 4.4 percent in April after a 9.2-percent rise in March. Prices for petroleum rose 57.2 percent for the year ended in April following a 1.1-percent drop over the previous 12-month period.

Nonpetroleum prices increased 1.1 percent for the second consecutive month, matching the largest one-month increase for the index since nonpetroleum prices were first published on a monthly basis in December 1988.

The price indexes for overall imports and nonpetroleum imports advanced 15.4 percent and 6.2 percent, respectively, during the past year.

These data are from the BLS International Price program. Import price data are subject to revision. Learn more in "U.S. Import and Export Price Indexes -- April 2008" (PDF) (HTML), news release USDL 08-0663.